Sites Don’t Stop at a Nice Interface
Have you ever been on a website that has amazing design? Attractive graphics, strategically-placed animations, colorful themes and eye-catching embedded videos can make a site really stand out. A nice site design can even make you more inclined to take part in whatever service or product they’re offering. But impressive design alone does not signify an effective, well-performing website.
Your business or organization could have the most aesthetically pleasing website around, but without the grounds for a high performance rating or SEO optimization, no customers will be able to find it (or you!) in the first place. So, how can you accomplish both functionality and style? And why do those technical terms and acronyms matter?
The Benefits of High Performance Ratings
According to a survey, “more than half of U.S. shoppers cited slow loading times as the top reason they’d abandon a purchase.” To put it simply, if your website is slow, you’re losing conversions regardless if you offer products or services. This goes for both desktop and mobile—you need to consider what devices your customers are using to find your site, and the connection speeds of those devices.
Website performance ties directly into accessibility. A faster-loading website that is functional on both desktop and mobile will retain the most visitors and traffic every time. Then, by having a stellar user experience, you’re converting more of those visitors into sales.
UX vs. UI: The Web Developer’s Balancing Act
User experience (UX) is a term used to describe the functionality and ease of use of a website, whereas user interface (UI) encompasses more of the site’s surface-level design. Both UX and UI need to be optimized in order to improve the performance rating of a website; having one without the other is a huge disservice.
Say, for instance, you come across a website with a colorful and appealing interface. It’s nice to look at and easy to read on your phone. But then, you can’t find the page you’re looking for. Where’s the menu? Where’s the contact information? Suddenly, you’re lost in this neat-looking website, and it’s taking forever to load you back onto the home page. This is an example of having a pleasing UI, but a UX that lacks easy navigation and loading speeds. This website would not be able to secure all the conversions it is aiming for.
What Is SEO?
That’s all great, but how can you make sure people are finding your website at all?
Here is where SEO, or search engine optimization, comes into play. SEO refers to your website’s ranking in search engines like Google and Bing. When a potential customer searches for a service or product that you offer, you want your website to show up on Google within the first few results.
In order to do that, there are seemingly endless industry best practices that websites need to follow, which then directly improve their performance rating and conversion rate. Meta data for each page, image tags and alt text, CSS coding, on-page SEO and more tools are vital for pushing your website to the top of search engines.
Not to mention, a website that appears at the top of Google’s search results will be perceived as a lot more credible and “real” than a website that only shows up on the second page. (When was the last time you went past the first page of Google?)
Performance of Sites We’ve Worked On
We’re not just talking the talk here. Our team is focused on creating the best UI and UX possible for every site we launch. Here are some of our most recent examples, all with performance grades of As and Bs and loading times of under a second.
AB Cares About the Details
Our website developers go beyond attractive design qualities. We’re nerds about SEO and we’re always chasing the highest possible performance ratings, where some other agencies may fall short or only focus on the aesthetics. It’s about both functionality and design, without sacrificing one for the other.
It’s our goal to empower local brands and businesses online. If you are considering a new website, shoot us an email and our team will provide you with a free assessment of your current site’s performance.
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